The Writings of Brother Sepharus
Some words convey a meaning that can transcend by association their definition, and can conjure up emotions and thoughts that run deep through a human’s soul. For me one word sits at the centre of this complex web we call life.....FATE.
This is a story, but more importantly a journey across a landscape only barely known, an area that is dark and mysterious, that may turn out to be the most important for the future of mankind - if there is a future.
One night I stood in my back garden looking up at the cold clear winter sky, it was late and quiet; my ears couldn’t hear the distant hiss and hum of traffic; my mind was on the stars that filled my eyes and my brain.
As I had done so often before I tried to look beyond the speckled blackness, and that feeling that I was just a toy, a plaything in the hands of some unseen power came back again.
Standing still on that night I quickly edited within a few seconds my whole life, and asked myself the same old questions: Why am I here? Why is everything the way it is? What purpose can our struggle on this small isolated ball hurling through space have?
It did seem logical that our type of life had a beginning on this planet, and it looked like it would end here as well. I had always believed that what ever mankind was reaching for, it would be found in himself, and no matter how far he went, he would only find the answers to his questions in that couple of pounds of grey matter, his mind. The questions and the answers sleep in the same bed, we keep shaking them, but the questions are rarely the right ones, and the answers sleep on.
I felt sure that there was an answer, one answer that united everything in one complete picture, but I also felt sure that this knowledge was beyond our comprehension. And so that feeling of sadness, that wave of futility, that feeling of loss, yet for something we’ve never had ?
At one time people had hope for the future of mankind , then for their children, but now we do not think beyond today. Uncertainty rules, and engenders fear, a fear that lies deep inside our being, faith has fled, what have we left.
Surely I can’t be the only one to feel this way? But I see no more stargazers out tonight, no one else starring up and asking why.
Is everyone else so wrapped up in their lives they’ve forgotten their alive?
We ignore death until it touches our hand; we ignore life until we escape death; and then briefly it becomes more important than anything we can conceive of.
“There’s nothing we can do about it” echoes across my mind, “why worry”.
Maybe the ones who sleep now know best. Why should I worry about mankind if no one else does? What good does it do me to contemplate the universe? Why should I care?
At that moment a shiver ran through me, must be the cold night air, I walked back into the house and sat in my chair palms pushed against the heat from the fire. I looked up at the ceiling but my mind saw beyond into that night sky that I knew was still there.
The questions were still there, and the feeling that was profound and at the same time pointless was still there. I poked the fire and the sparks seemed like shooting stars in its miniature world. Sleep began its nightly crawl through my mind. I knew it would take me soon, but I wanted one more rhetorical question.
Sleep would destroy the questions, and end the feelings, it may even take me in dreams away to other worlds more liquid than this one, and tomorrow I would join the human race again for awhile.
Are the answers just too big for us to comprehend?
I could feel the morning sun penetrating the skin of my face. My eyes wanted to open, but stayed shut as if disobedient to my order. Then came the link, the sound of the birds punctuating the early morning air, there on the tree in my garden, the garden where I stood last night asking some big questions. The feelings had slumbered with me, but they also awoke and told me I was back..... back in the REAL world. How quick my brain was at letting me know who I was again, how fast at making that link.
I opened my eyes and saw the intense fluorescent digits of my bed side clock...5:05!
It seemed that recently every time I looked at a clock I saw the same reoccurring pattern, usually in the form of a double number and always a mirror image, like 11:11 or 22:22 or 10:01. This was beginning to go beyond coincidence I thought, had it some meaning, or was I just going mad? I could hear a soundless laugh way down inside me, somewhere deep.
I was worried about the polluted air we breathed; I was worried about the amount of chemical intake we call food; I was worried about the Orwellian Big Brother who had sneaked in the back door, while we awaited him knocking at the front. But most of all was the secrecy, the overwhelming feeling that secrets were being kept from the public, and the secret keepers themselves. Behind them a greater secret, a secret to do with our evolution. An explanation, an answer to this on-off dance we call life, could it really be so bad for us to know it?
What’s paranoid? Am I paranoid?
Am I going too far, making a mountain out of such a small mole hill? As my long dead teacher used to say, “get the ground work right or you will become part of it”. I think I know now what he meant. If the foundation of a house is not right, then it falls down and buries you in it.
O. K. First I suspect that something is going on in my life that I have absolutely no control of, and that something seems not to have my well-being at heart.
PROOF ONE in support of this idea.
I seem to be the only one standing looking up at the sky in the early hours of the morning, and yet there must be others (feelings of isolation, being different some how, I know lots of people have this)
CONCLUSION-(emotional and circumstantial evidence).
PROOF TWO
Most of the time when I look at my clock I see double or mirrored numbers (this is fact, but the odds of this happening are not astronomical).
PROOF THREE
Conspiracy theories apart, there is enough evidence to suggest that the government is increasing control of us in ALL aspects of our lives, if by proxy.( I can’t refute this one. But if the number of people I think are looking up at the sky, equals the number of people who are aware of this, then were all in serious trouble)
PROOF FOUR
Things have happened in my life that do not fit in with my life. And events that could only be referred to as FATE keep occurring.(This really stinks to high heaven, but possibilities: some other earthly power trips up now and again and exposes itself, but manages to do a very good cover-up job, or this is not the first time I’ve taken this same journey we call life, or someone somehow can see the future, and maybe change it. For what purpose? Did they make a balls of it the first time?
Too many possibilities here, but the proof goes back a long way. Proof four must be the one that’s influenced my thinking more than any other, that’s led me to suspect an invisible observer stands at my shoulder... waiting, I know not why. I use the word invisible in the sense that it could be right in front of us, it’s our mind that forbids us seeing it, a conditioned mind.
Well not much to go on eh! Too few facts, lots of inference, my teacher would be disappointed.
There is another strange thing about life I’ve found out. The more you look at any statement anyone makes about anything, the more you see how everything at its root fades and disappears into NOTHING, not one thing in life is held up by anything substantial. Take any argument back to square one, and you find nothing at its core. Take it to its ultimate conclusion, and again you’ll find nothing waiting for you with a big grin on its face. It’s in-between where all the juicy bits happen, where meaning holds a temporary roll.
Have you ever wondered how easy it is to get into some ones mind, how easy it is to make someone believe something they never believed before? No? Well watch!!!
Hello!
Yes, I am talking to you.
Yes, the person thats reading this now
YOU
Where am I ?
Right inside your head, you read these words inside your head, didn’t you!.
That’s where I am NOW.
Easy wasn’t it, you let me in
As long as you keep reading these words I can feed you anything I want.
Think how much more power I would have over you, if I had pictures and sound, and a plot worked out in advance to anticipate your reactions to this data. But this is exactly what’s happening to you every day! You are being fed information that is tailored to make you see the world around you in just one way.
Well you have been fed, stuffed with information to make you believe what you never believed before. What I want to do is make you commit “suicide”. A suicide of ideas. In real life, you will often hear people say they had no REASON left to live. Meaning they had reasoned it out, that they wanted no more part of this life. Yet what do you get at the inquest (they took their own life while the balance of their mind was disturbed) Bullshit!. Society cannot understand or stomach the alternative.
You must get rid of some preconceived ideas about life first, unless you’re a stargazer. What you see about you is probably right most of the time. What you understand about what you see, is probably wrong most of the time.
Preconceived idea one. GOD
NO I’m sorry he has to go!
You may need to call on him in your last dying moments, but its desperation isn’t it. Most of the rest of your life is concerned with just getting by, and blaspheming at appropriate times. Because humans are so called intelligent, does not mean you can infer from that, God must be more intelligent because he created us. Then go on to say God created everything. Just about everything we see in life has a flaw (believe it). So God must be a flawed on a really big scale.
Wherever I look I don’t see any big flaws. We are not standing on half a planet. All the planets are not in irregular orbits about the sun. We have two legs to make sure we don’t fall over sideways. No! he certainly hasn’t made any big cock ups. So call him perfect like humans eh! (bollocks). You NEED to BELIEVE don’t you. Life has no meaning if you don’t believe in something, no hope, nothing! Depressing isn’t it (tough). Let’s twist an often quoted line, you can’t handle the truth, the thing is you NEVER did and NEVER will. That leads nicely to preconceived idea two TRUTH.
Hello! Still there? Starting to disturb you yet? NO? Read on.
TRUTH
This one’s easy, relative! The truth is relative to so many conditions, Einstein got this one right, pity he wasn’t a philosopher. So a statement like (the truth is god exists) really goes out the window. The truth is out there, or the truth is inside one, flies out the same window. So without God or Truth the whole edifice of what seemed like meaning in our life starts to rock.
Watch out below....
BELIEF
Wow! this is the big one! What you believe depends on which way your mind has understood everything that has been fed to you in your lifetime. Lets just say that again.
What you believe depends on which way your mind has understood everything that has been fed to you in your lifetime.
What tells you how to understand things?
Well! You put your hand in the fire and get burnt, ouch! You file this away in your mind (hand in fire = ouch). You never again deliberately put your hand in the fire,(the mind has understood). So what tells you how to understand things - EXPERIENCE!
So belief based on experience is about the only reliable guide we have to interpret this life, OK. So what happens when you meet an experience that contradicts the first one. Fire equals ouch, followed by fire does not equal ouch. We go on sticking to the first one (no pain) safest bet. And we tend to put the other to the darkest corner of the mind, and only pull it out when talking about (a strange thing happened to me once) conversation.
Well we stargazers have dark corners of our minds absolutely bulging with such stuff..
Hello again! Yes you.
How many things do you have tucked away in your dark corner? Do you say to yourself well I’ll explain them some day eh! Seeing I’m inside your mind, why don’t I help? NO? Well you can always stop reading, CAN’T YOU.
What would you like to call this unexplained data filed away in your mind? God’s cock-ups, or flaws of nature. Or is it just that your mind has picked it up wrongly, its been your fault all the time. Naughty mind. Well I believe in you. I believe that what you have in your dark corner, is very similar to mine, and that you didn’t pick it up wrongly. Lets see. You’ve seen a strange light in the sky, or maybe a ghostly figure, or a touch of deja vu or E.S.P.
Have I hit on it yet? Bet I’m close.
Just one moment, while I’m inside your head. Look its a book, I think its an index of your life. It all nicely cross referenced, but what puzzles me is that the images are very bitty, and they don’t look like they should have the priority they seem to hold. Some are even stamped “Top Secret”.
Well isn’t that strange.
I think you need a new librarian, some of this stuff has definitely been put in the wrong category.
Oh! here we are, the dark corner section. No wonder your still reading this! I think somebody’s been messing about with the text in some of these records. Large sections have just been obliterated, Your mind will never recall them again. Could be your subconscious mind has been doing alterations to keep you sane, or..or.
Time to get out for a moment, I need air.
COINCIDENCE
This really bugs me, I’ve had so many. What about you?
It’s when they come in clusters that it sometimes gets a bit unsettling - I think thats the right word. Yes unsettling. You just know they have to mean something, but what? You sit there in your little humdrum life with a blank expression on your face. Come on, try using that fantastic thinking machine. Just what could they mean? An omen, a sign, hic-ups in the time continuum, what? hic-ups in the time continuum...... hic-ups in the time continuum. You are paying attention, good.
By now I think you’re beginning to think I’m mad, or have one card missing from a full deck, maybe! I know one thing, that if you have a rudder on a ship you can steer a course from A to B, but It’s only when the rudder breaks that you discover C. Are you getting the picture yet? We have to stop using the same course. And by some chance the ship sinks, then at least we’ll have gotten to the bottom of things.
“Ha, Ha said the mad captain, there’s treasure down there”.
Where was I? Oh yes, coincidence! This one’s for us all, not just stargazers. Everyone has had coincidences in their lives. Well most people ignore them, some take note then forget them, some say their quaint, and tell people about them at parties, but stargazers remember them for a long time. In an odd way it gives some meaning to their lives. It says to them that something is going on, some universal power is interfering with them again. And when they’re getting too much, like other humans, it shakes them out of that complacency, reminds them they’re stargazers.
Did I use the words (UNIVERSAL POWER...)
Why did I say that? Could it be something to do with.. No big flaws in the universe! People can’t see what’s in front of them! - (brainwashed since birth). Interference with my method of recording time (digital clock). Contradictions in my reason for living! I’m in your mind while your in mine! No God, No Truth, just Nothing! What you believe depends on which way your mind has understood ! (hand in fire = ouch) Well that’s jogged your memory, I hope.
Look at this. I’m speaking to you across space and time. You do not exist where you are at the moment I’m writing this. The time you are reading this does not exist yet for me.(Its better than E.S.P). Also I’m in your mind as well as you being in mine...WOW!!!. I hear you say, but what does it mean?
Hard to grasp eh!. WHY?
Well there’s a mutiny going on in your brain, and the crew want to get rid of the rudder. The captain’s the only one holding them back, and he’s strong. (Must soften him up first or get him to look the other way).
While you’ve been reading this I have been shining a light into your dark corner. Surprise! Surprise!.. Look what I’ve found.
THE STORY OF THE HERMIT
One day along time ago, their was a wise man who decided to live the life of a hermit. So off he went into the most desolate part of a dark forest, and built a house next to a sparkling clear stream. For years he lived in total peace with just nature and his thoughts. Until one day a woodsman came upon him, and showed him his wounds, he had been gorged by a wild bore. The hermit helped him. With his knowledge of herbs he healed the wound very quickly. The woodsman thanked him and returned to his own village. He told everyone about the hermit with his knowledge to heal, and pretty soon people were coming from far and wide to ask for his help or advice, until he no longer found he had any peace. People would come in the middle of the night from across the country; sometimes there would be queues at his door. So one day, when no one was around, he packed up his meagre possessions and left. He travelled to a far land where few people lived and no one knew him and set up home again. But this time he swore never to help anyone again, even if this went against his inner nature. This troubled him greatly, and he spent long nights worrying about the actions he would take if some one did turn up requiring help. And of course the day came when he was in a position to help a small boy that had become lost from his father. In an instant he knew the answer to his dilemma. He told the boy, that to the north lived a giant with three eyes, and to the south a witch that ate peoples heads, and in the east was the cave of the black dragons. He then smiled at the boy and went back in his hut.
The boy went west and found his father.
Well did you like that story?
OK I’ve pulled you all over the place, and I’m sure your feeling a bit sea sick by now. What’s he getting at? Where’s all this leading? I know you’re used to having a clear path to follow, seeing at least a few footsteps in front of you. I’ve had to show you a uncharted island, In a way like the boy I’m telling you where it is, and that some of the answers lie there. (Because that is what you want after all) ANSWERS.
Right!, now here’s the guided tour of the island, first class.
Q. Why is there no big flaw in the universe?
A. Sorry but there is, its just so big you cannot see it. It’s called the Universe.
I did say I would give you answers, not that you’ll like them!.
Q. Why don’t I understand the big picture of what life is about?
A. You have not been programmed to understand it.
Q. Will I ever see anything of what’s going on?
A. Yes, Understanding it is a much harder task!.(Watch the clock ?)
Q. Does this little life of mine have any meaning in the grander scheme of things?
A. No. No meaning at all - it has purpose, but not (meaning).
Q. Is there anything that has meaning in this world?
A. Yes. It’s to do with something we call a (paradox).
Q. Are you saying there’s no intelligence at work behind it all?
A. Not behind it, above it, around it, outside it, inside it, not intelligence, wisdom of a type YES.
Q. Does what I believe matter at all?
A. It matters to you, that’s it!.
Q. Would there be any point to anything I did, once I’m dead?
A. Oh! yes. How you respond to what’s in your dark corner is what its all about! In those moments are all your answers. All the Wisdom of the Paradox, A View of the great Flaw, You will touch Eternity and will know it for what it is, and more. You’ll know the hand and the fire are illusions, and that (ouch) is just a echo...without start or end.
That’s some of the features of the mysterious dark island, hope you enjoyed the tour. What I hear you say! (I told you Nothing)? Oh! but I have. You just don’t know it yet. I’ve put seeds in the dark corner of your mind, time will make them grow. OK you want to see some flowers NOW. Typical!.
When you’re sitting all alone at night, and not thinking of what’s happened during the day, and not worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow, just letting your mind wander, for a few moments you stop seeing the room you’re in. Even though you’re eyes are open, you stop hearing the noise of the kettle you put on just a couple of minutes ago. You’re then suddenly back, and the objects are there, the sounds are there. It’s like you drifted off in some sort of trance, like the mind switched off. You did not have any knowledge of the body you where in, but you believe you were still here in your world. Nothing happened in that short interval, you know it. So it’s possible to switch everything in the outside world off at some place inside your mind, lots of people would call this day-dreaming. But that can’t be, because you know you were not thinking of anything. So what happened? Was it some kind of day-nap? No, I knew I was still here. I think you were alive but not living, does that sound closer to that feeling? Yes, can you imagine if you died and there was a thing you called a soul, or some energy force, wouldn’t you think that it would be a bit like that feeling? Not thinking, not intelligent, just aware. Stop thinking and you get what’s left, AWARENESS. So the mind dies with the body, no more thinking!. Is awareness part of the mind or not?
Just imagine floating in a black void with nothing at all around you, absolutely nothing. There’s nothing to be aware of, is there? You cannot even be aware of your awareness. So for all intensive purposes you do not exist. So let’s say, before the earth was ever created, you existed, (If I can use the word existed) as a possibility, just one of a infinity of possibilities And after you die you return to that none existing state. But at some point in time you were real and existing. If time continues on its infinite journey, then you will never exist again, unless time goes in a circle, but then you are not one of a infinity of possibilities any more are you. You’re a certainty to re-exist, certain to come from nothing? I think not? In which case bye! bye! Never to been seen again. How sad!
But what if, just what if time is not infinite, and has a beginning and an end. Then we have a possibility that everyone that ever lived and everyone that will ever live, starts their lives at the beginning of time and ends it at the end of time. This means that no one ever did not exist, or ever will not exist, do you see? We leap from the beginning of time to the point we start our lives, then die and leap to the end of time. There is never any point where we do not exist.
I hear you say what about before the beginning and after the end? What started time off? What if like the big bang theory that there is one point? We say that this started space as we know it. and it could end up back at this one point, why not time? We are only AWARE of time because there is movement in our universe, what if there is no movement, then to be aware of time, something else has to move in relation to it, and it can only be our AWARENESS. Is awareness a type of spinning clock, or (A inverse what the butler saw machine)? We are inside it looking out, a penny is placed in the slot, and we see and live in this world for a limited time. We are trapped inside with all the other minds of awareness. For a brief moment we feel part of this other world we call life. And then blackness!.
Has the penny dropped? (sorry about the pun)
We have a very poor comprehension of what reality is, so understanding it is out of the question. The best we can hope for, is to listen to the garbled sounds that filter their way into our dark world, and believe that the higher level of reality we can never know, values this flash of life, and has an awareness of us that is much more profound than our awareness of it.
If we are not that important in the over all scheme of things, Why bother? Because deep down we know that there has to be some correspondence between our inner reality and that outer one. That if mankind can learn enough, go far enough, risk enough, he may just decode a factor that unites everything, no matter on what level it dwells. No matter in what time it resides, no matter how complex or simple it is. That holds everything together, and at the same time is everything. That one moment of awareness is love, life, and existence, it is all and nothing. We have no words to describe it, no concept that mirrors its ever changing pattern. Call it God if you like, why not?
So the stargazer is trying to commune with God!(How Holy!) Unfortunately only half the world can look at stars, the rest have to look at the sun. Sounds like the start of a poem, that forgotten skill that the early stargazers considered the holiest of pursuits.
Half the world looks at the stars
And the other half at the sun
No one has ever seen eye to eye
Since the world begun.
The night sends us still born dreams
And day tries to mould them true
We’ll never reach what is real or see
What the stargazer knew.
Water for them seeds maybe!
Hello I’m back! (Where were we?) Yes! You’ve had the tour, and dropped in at the philosophy class (bonus).
Just one moment - you know that index I’m looking at inside your head? Well down here you had Stargazer under the scientific section, but now it’s starting to move down the page, and it’s hovering between the paranormal and spiritual (Very Strange...).
Lets take two statements that seem to possess a great depth of meaning for mankind.
Shakespeare: To be, or not to be, that is the question?
God (in the bible): I am what I am.
To be, or not to be.(negative),(open ended),(indecisive)
I am what I am.(positive),(closed),(decisive)
Two completely opposite attitudes, yet trying to say the same thing I think. The first one saying there is a point where things can be resolved, and the second saying this is where things are resolved. But surely this has to be the same point. Just showing you how two things can seem so different from each other, and yet be one and the same. It’s humans who make the differences, not reality.
10:01 p.m., half smoked cigarette, sore eyes, blank computer screen. Conditions of a point in time, my point. But how can I describe me, the real me inside this body. Words can only give you the outer layer, the shell. No one can describe who they really are. You have to be me, and then it needs no description. An actor without a script, improvising, thats what we all are. Not quite what Shakespeare meant unless you believe in fate.
OK..OK...OK..lets get back to the island.
Is there anything you haven’t seen? Oh yes! The roads that link everything together. NOT IMPORTANT I hear you think. Well! Without roads you go nowhere on this island, absolutely nowhere. There is no one point where you can stand, that you’re not on a road that leads somewhere.(A lot like life) If you went up in a balloon to get a complete view of it, you would see that even the places are only stopping points on the roads. They have a saying on this island, a bit like All roads lead to Rome, they say something like All roads are Rome or everything is linked and the links are everything
The links are everything! But will always go unseen, just shadows in the light of intellect.
Hello again! You know where stargazer decided to settle? - In the philosophy section. That’s another dying art like: Poetry or the ability to think independently of your conditioning. What I hear you say (I’m not conditioned) My laughter echoes down the halls of eternity.
Time to play a game! Name twenty-two paradoxes. Just joking. Let me give you my definition of a paradox. A paradox is the point where two things are Linked and gives us a insight into the big flaw, and the flaw in our understanding. Not happy with this one are you! OK... Try this old one!
Man invents time machine. Man goes into past. Kills his father. Therefore he is not born. Cannot invent time machine
We have up until now concluded that it is impossible to go into the past because of this paradox. It also infers that we cannot invent a time machine, as this would allow us to go back into the past. Therefore travelling backward in time is impossible. Up until now, whatever man has understood, he has made use of, or exploited in some way. Does this mean that we will never understand what time is? A limit to understanding? Surely no?. (poor human dum dums) If not what else? Could it signify that time does not exist, therefore we can not travel in something that does not exist?(its a human construct). Lets look at this closer, IF TIME DOES NOT EXIST. Its therefore a constructed idea that lets our mind comprehend reality. So things do not follow one after the other.(its a illusion in some way, a very good one). I said before that our awareness could be the thing thats moving, not reality. This could give the illusion of time passing. and could this mean that all the laws we associate with the reality out there, are in fact a description of our thoughts or awareness inside us. So when we look at the stars we see ourselves in some gigantic mirror.
As the stargazer said “a shiver ran through me”
TIP ON AVOIDING CONDITIONING
Wherever you are, or whoever you are, look around you at the world you’re in, and I bet you can find a person, or a company, or a government that is playing the 3 CARD TRICK!
Let me explain - you know, the trick where the magician has three cards and you have to find the queen, (you usually lose, by the magician’s sleight of hand).
Well this is like that, but in life the cards get laid before you and you get asked to choose one, once you decide to choose, you’ve lost, even before you turn the card up. Its like this. They give you a number of choices, you do not stop and think, that there are more than the number they give you. You’re conditioned to choose. Watch out for this one, it comes in many disguises.(lookout for the other cards up his sleeve).
OK lets get back to the island. If no matter where you are, you’re on a path, cannot be right. A path has to go through or across something, To show that its a path, right? No! The type of path I mean, is like standing in a field of corn. Once you start to walk for a while then look back, you see the track you made. This is the path you took, isn’t it? Before you started walking, the area you crossed was there, it just didn’t look like a path. The corn field had millions of potential paths through it, you just picked one. So with my idea, the entire corn field is covered in paths. And no one area is not a path. Ha! I hear you say, POTENTIAL, thats not real, its just a possibility. A possible path I may or may not take.
So are you saying that in a few moments from now the universe is only a possible universe, and not a real one? That you’ve breathed in, and there’s only a possibility of breathing out? So your past does not exist, your future does not exist, your just a little dot on time’s ever flowing river? The none existing past grows, and the none existing future diminishes? What are you? A bubble created by unknown circumstances, just to pop some yards down the stream?
On this island I’m always on the path to somewhere. My future exists, I can turn round and see my past exists. (I may not like it, but it exists).
Looking at the sun for too long will make you blind, but before that you may just get to see a sun spot. It’s like looking into your dark corner - you can lose all hope, but you may see a spot of light. To obtain what you call the truth, may cost more than you want to spend.
Up until now I’ve given you a lot of freebie’s, skeleton keys to doors you can see. For the last door your going to wear a blind fold, and you’ll have to WORK! It’s going to COST. So unless you feel deep down some inner understanding of where I’m taking you, then stop reading this now.
Have you ever sat quietly and thought about your life, and a feeling that no matter what your ideas are about its origin and purpose, there is something missing? You can’t put your finger on it, you know deep down something is missing. As you get older you start looking over your shoulder at that clock, just ticking away, just reducing the amount of time you have left on this earthly plane. You start to think, what have I done? Is it enough? Have I achieved something, anything really, anything that matters when it’s all over? Can I die with a smile on my face, contented that I’ve played some part in the Big Game?
OK, say you find a couple of things you’ve done with your life that you can turn around and say “I’m proud I did that. It will make a difference”. You will not be here to see the difference, but you hope by some knock-on effect the world will be better off, because you were HERE.(A touch of; Wonderful Life)
DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT?
So the unseen actions of people in the past have had a impact on how you lead your life today, Maybe...
For good or bad?
Because the bad actions must have the same relevance as the good. Therefore you have been helped by the positive actions of long dead humans, and have been impaired by the bad actions of others.
How much of an effect do you think they’ve had on this life you lead now ?
A thought comes to mind, “For the betterment of mankind”.
Name one thing that someone in the past has done for the betterment of mankind, and be honest. I want you to really think about this one, looks can deceive. Not the effect it seems to have today, but the reason behind it at the time.
OK time's up, but the Question is, have you ever asked the question before? No, why not? Should we not ask more questions like this, is no one interested in the forces that effect our lives today?
Pardon me if I use a dirty word “Philosophy”.
When was it that we stopped thinking of life? When we stopped philosophising about its purpose. Oh yes, the experts have all the answers don’t they. Whatever they don’t know, we need not worry about, do we!. When we have a few hours left before a meteor crashes into the earth, I’m sure they’ll start to learn a little about philosophy.
Scenario 1: Meteor the size of the earth is heading on a collision course, it will hit us in 22 days, we can not deflect it with rockets or anything else. It’s basically over for humanity. Reaction: Chaos.
Scenario 2: New disease is spreading like wildfire, within a few weeks every one on the planet will be dead (Most likely human engineered) Reaction: Chaos.
But extend the time frame of any apocalyptic scenario, instead of 22 days, we have 22 years. Reaction: LOOK AROUND YOU!!!!
You’re sitting around a table with some of the greatest brains on earth, and one of these scenario’s has just been confirmed, what would be decided?
"Let’s Play Annihilation.
Would you make it public knowledge?
No.( A lot of very good reasons are put forward)
Can it be stopped?
No.( All possibilities are examined and rejected)
What must be our number one priority?
The survival of the species. (In some form)"
In both scenarios isolation from the earth environment is imperative to any kind of survival. We must remove a enough humans plus our very best technological equipment with the greatest amount of information to another location, to give them any chance of surviving and so continue human existence.
How may we get people to assist in this endeavour without giving them knowledge of the project? We must create a threat that is equal to the actual threat in some manner, but will not make such a devastating impact on the public mind. All the resources of the planet must be put at its disposal by any and every method available.
"Can we relocate to another planet in our solar system?
No - (not with the technology we have or could acquire, this would not guarantee survival for any length of time)
Can we create an artificial environment in space for them to survive in?
No. (It would only allow them a limited time to survive)
Lets rule out Time Travel, and Interdimentional Travel of some sort."
OK brains what did they decide to do in the end?
Before you read any further take a break and think what you might have decided.
OK we must take some action, a action that allows us the best chance of survival. Lets speculate!.
We have a better chance of survival if the only thing we have to maintain, are our reproductive elements i.e.. ova, sperm.
Requirements:
Long time storage capacity.(Done)
Artificial womb.(Done)
Artificial Intelligence to be nanny and teacher to our progeny (Half Done)
This looks possible!
All resources to be channelled into this.
It’s decided that three ships should be built, targeted at the most likely inhabitable locations around nearby star systems. Storage systems to contain the greatest amount of information we can pack into them. The development of reasoning quantum systems - nannies). At the same time keeping control at all levels, so no great war, economical instability, social unrest can interfere with this plan.
Development of methods to protect these targets as well as methods to reach them. A yearly check to confirm the development of the project is on schedule, that the systems that have been put in place are working efficiently, and any new ideas to enhance or protect the project are looked at. And to update the deadline if required.
The Project is split into three parts:
Group One: To oversee the construction and function of the ships and all aspects relating to the intelligence systems for the reconstituting of the humans and their development in any alternative environment
Group Two: Development of control systems to maintain secrecy, and suppression of all disorderly scenarios that could slow or halt completion of the project on an international scale.
A sub group to control individuals that my promote or initiate any of the above.
Group Three: The accumulation of all the resources needed to accomplish the project via, Black Budgets, Infiltration and manipulation of economic systems, mass mind control techniques.
I cannot deprogram you, you must do it yourself.(This could be a History lesson!)
Well lets lighten up! If I asked you what is your favourite colour, or football team, or TV. soap, or political party? The tragedy is nine times out of ten ANYONE would give me a ANSWER to most of these questions. (What a mountain, I have to climb, Not a stargazer in sight!.).
If I said “an old evil man is torturing a helpless innocent child” You have already made a decision without the need for reason, have you not! Of course you have no facts about my statement, you didn’t need them did you.
Lets look at a thought picture: old - child(young); (knowledge)evil - innocent(no-knowledge); man - child, torturing(one way pain)
Lets look at another: “The cruel evil child is torturing the helpless old man”. Not quite as comfortable with this statement are you!
What about: “The man and the child are torturing each other”. Not as quick to make that unreasoned judgement are you!.
WHY NOT?
I did say you would have to work!
You can spend some time on this one, unless you believe in the three space ship scenario, in which case the clock’s ticking.
If you like a happy ending to a story, you’ve picked the wrong material to read. Anyway why should you like happy endings? (Work, Work,.....)
Come on don’t skip it....THINK!
Hello again, this dark corner is not so dark now, there are lights being shone everywhere, its a good job the information is quick at shifting place, or you could have obtained total enlightenment in a flash, and I don’t think your mind would have survived it, not without blowing a fuse.
Its written down here, “I feel I know more of who I am as a person when I don’t think about anything”, interesting eh!.
It’s a bit like you’re trying to do a jigsaw without the picture, you’re getting groups of pieces together and finding an object, but you’re putting them on a table that’s not big enough to hold them all. Some bits are falling off. You’ll never do it that way. If I increase the size of the table, then the pieces get bigger as well, anyway I suppose you know what your doing.
What really interests me is what is shifting the information around, stopping you getting the picture. Now that’s mysterious!
Em... I’m being asked to leave! Sorry but I can’t help you any more, after all I’ve been telling you things that the dark corner was created to hide from you. Hope I’ve been of some help....”OK am going”.... just one more thing, poetry again...sorry!
What you believe is disguised to deceive, what you don’t believe is disguised to retrieve
Don’t bother your little brain over this one, its like the ground, you’ll find it when you trip up.
At this point I should do a recap, especially about the island, but what the heck! Onward into the valley of death.
If a stargazer closes his eyes he can make the universe disappear, but can he feel the earth move beneath his feet?
Try this on for size! The harder the question the simpler the answer, the simpler the question the harder the answer
Like....What’s the meaning of life? - simple question or hard question ...which?
What is one plus one? - simple or hard....which?
OK I hear you say the first one’s hard, and the second is simple.....are you sure?
If I answer the first one by saying, we give life meaning therefore the answer is us, and one plus one would equal two if we could find one thing that had only one part, but we can’t, so we can never say anything equals two, what then? Are we going to argue over definitions of words, OK define meaning?
But once you do this mind, the question has to change, and you’re on a boat to nowhere, for the more definitions you explain, the more there is to define.
Back to the can of worms
OK what am I getting at? Well, the more we try to explain things using words, which is all we have, the more we see that they’re incapable of giving us answers that have a fixed meaning. You can’t define the question down to make it simple, it becomes more complex. Therefore the simplicity of the question is inversely proportional to the complexity of the answer.(deep breath).
Questions get too complex to ask, or too simple to understand. And if we don’t understand the question. What then?
Well, we round numbers off so we can work with them, so that’s what we do with questions and answers, their approximations, don’t look at them too closely or the universe will fall apart before your very eyes!
This also goes for everything that has been said or written, the one absolute is there are none, which leads back to a PARADOX
How do we get past this thing we call a Paradox?
Just a moment!.. What I’ve said reminds me much of the way Einstein used the word RELATIVE. Only he give it a more negative connotation, as in a thing is only relative while it circumstances are in some fixed relationship, whereas the original meaning meant it had a relationship no matter what circumstances existed.
Anyway back to the paradox which is starting to look more like some monster created to limit the scope of our understanding. I have always believed that a paradox was saying “something is wrong”. Or one or more of the arguments has a flaw in it, and that if we iron that out, the paradox would vanish.
OK lets go back to the time machine paradox.
We’ve seen that all things are approximations, then lets say anything which is more than 50% possible exists, and anything under 50% does not. Now lets look at the problem again:
Man invents time machine. Man goes into past. Kills his father. Therefore he is not born. Cannot invent time machine
The possibility of inventing a time machine depends on the make-up of time. Can we travel in it? I think we could conceive of a force that can be used in this way. I would make this 55% possible. Man would at some time get round to exploiting this force, invention of a time machine. I would give this 99% possible.
OK that’s time, and the time machine possible, where’s the flaw? Wait!
Man can kill man, that’s got to be 100% He can be born 100%
OK where’s the flaw! The only weakness in the argument for timetravel, is time itself, but using the rule of possibility this means it exists.
So what have we left, MAN! What is the possibility of man existing as he is now? I would say 1%.(What would you say)
How can I say man does not exist to get rid of a paradox. Find a paradox where man is not part of its make-up?
OK...Lets look at a few Consider the following two equations:
x + 2 = 5
x + 5 = 10
The above set of equations looks like a "paradox". Would you buy that? No.. The equations are simply contrary. Yet it is the nature of paradoxes that they hide such logical errors with clever wordings.
Consider this one from Bertrand Russell: "The barber shaves everyone in town who doesn't shave himself. Who shaves the barber?"
If you think about it, you will see that the barber statement represents an impossible set of conditions. Russell has in effect created two equations (like the ones above) and masked their contradictions by clever wording. Russell could have replaced the above with the simpler "paradox": "This statement is false."
The "Half-Way" Paradox
A man cannot ever get anywhere. The reason is that he must first go half way, then when he gets half way, he must go half way of the remaining distance, then half way of the remaining distance, ad infinitum. He thus is forever getting half way to his goal, never reaching it.
Solution: the paradox's logic requires our friend to get "half way", but the conclusion is that he cannot get anywhere. Thus, the paradox requires as true that which it is trying to prove false. The implication is of the form "true implies false", and is false.
Note that in this case it is obvious that the premise is true and conclusion is false. Common sense!
The Arrow Paradox
Consider an arrow in flight. At each moment in flight, it occupies exactly one position and no other, and therefore is at rest at that moment. It is therefore at rest at each moment in flight. Thus, the arrow cannot move. Solution: the premise is that the arrow moves (is in flight), and the conclusion is that it cannot move. True implies false again.
The Omnipotence Paradox
"Can an all-powerful being create something that is greater than itself?" is the central question of the omnipotence paradox. If a being is defined as being omnipotent, can it create a stone that is too heavy for it to lift or a future that it cannot control? If it can, then it is not omnipotent thereby violating our premise that the being is all-powerful; if it cannot, then it is again not omnipotent. This question is, of course, unanswerable, or is it!
These solutions are not mine, but they do clear the mist that surrounds some paradoxes. Still at the heart is a clear indication that our understanding of definitions we apply to words and logic can be taken for granted. Also as with life, we take far too much for granted.
Lets take that word Omnipotence. I could give you a thousand sheets of paper and you would never be able to write a complete and total definition of its meaning, it would just become so complex that the more you write the less you would understand
This applies to any word you could pick, on a superficial level they all seem to possess a clear definition, but you know that once you decide to question its validity, and its composition, there is no end to the road you’ve started on. Our thinking inside that skull is greatly influenced by WORDS...
Lets make one thing clear, there are no absolutes, no absolute truth, no absolute definition of anything. So is our world just a fuzzy reality, where nothing is fixed.(YES AND NO).What else!
Look at the Ying Yang symbol. It indicates movement, but does not move, it shows one side of duality embedded inside the other and visa versa, yet is one symbol. It suggests to me order inside chaos, and chaos inside order, two forces expressed as one.(fuzzy reality).
When you start to question everything, then you find the world you know is not the world you know.
If you can not find anything out for certain, and there is no base to work from, what hope is there for mankind? You are part of the fuzzy reality. Accept this and you can relate in a completely different way to life. Instead of letting experience carve chunks out of you, and fashion you by its interaction into a walking paradox, tear it to shreds with insight, and foresight, with Nietzschrian condemnation of its repetitive parody. Embrace destiny so hard it cringes. Be destiny and more. Transcend it. Stroke the face of hell with the hand of heaven. Know that the moment is eternity and eternity the moment.
Once in the past you were not, and in the future you will not be again, but know you are, and that now has a worth beyond anything and everything. How do you realise this worth? You don’t. Does gold know its own value?
Reach out and touch something, anything. You feel it with your fingers, but you know that feeling is created in the mind. So......So...... Forget about your fingers, reach out and touch it with your mind.
FEEL IT WITH YOUR MIND
Your hands on the door, your so close now.
Get a piece of paper and write down seven things your completely sure about in life. Then look down the list, and FEEL the truth. If you can not cross them all off, you’re still asleep, and need an alarm call.
ALARM CALL!
What is your name? Say it in your mind now, to yourself.
Again, and again.
You can feel that is not you, its just not you, is it. Why?
Take a few years to think about this one.
BUZZ BUZZ go’s the alarm)
Happiness is the road to achieving want you want, not getting it.
Forget about happiness. Its not what you really want is it? What you need more than anything else, is to find your place. And to know that place is important enough for you to go on. You don’t mind acting out your part, as long as you’re sure of applause at the end. The thing is, you can’t be sure, can you, that’s what gets right up your nose.
UNCERTAINTY!... The big UNKNOWN...
If only you knew what is going to happen, it would make things better, would it? (Watch out the monster called paradox is raising its head.)
There is an old saying, “What we don’t know won’t hurt us”. Yet we live our lives in fear of the unknown. Daily our thoughts are, What will I do if this happens? Or what if I say this? If’s and If’s.....
We spend a lot less time thinking about what we’ve already done. We cannot alter the past, but come to think of it, can we alter the future. We tend to think we can, Why?
(BUZZ BUZZ go’s the alarm)
Well because I can decide to do something or not to, that’s why.
(You have control eh!)
So the one thing you have some control over, at the same time is the one thing you worry about the most? (Strange, do you not think)
(BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ)
You’re scared to make a mistake! That’s why you worry.
How do you define MISTAKE, (a wrong decision) How do you know what’s right and wrong before you make that decision? Experience (ouch, remember!) But this is going to be a completely new set of circumstances is it not? Yes, but it will help narrow the possibility’s down to a more correct decision, than if I had no experience at all.
POSSIBILITIES.......(sounds like a mild form of UNKNOWN to me)
Are we talking about the Quantum world or what?
How do you decide what falls inside or outside of that narrow corridor?
It seems to me that your using outdated rules to judge an unspecifiable condition. (No, its not the quantum world after all, its a fantasy world).
(BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ)
The stargazer awoke, and slowly got up out of his compatible chair and went back outside to take one last look at the stars. They were different somehow. He didn’t know why, but he could FEEL why.